death penalty
‘It is irretrievably broken.’
October 5, 2015
The Week
‘As Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent in June observes, the uncertainty that prevails over the death penalty system is in itself a form of cruelty that should be forbidden by the Eighth Amendment.’
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This is the reality of the death penalty. A division of labor is set up in which numerous officials, operating within their formal legal authority, act in concert to produce a flagrantly unjust outcome for which no one person is responsible. As the legal scholar Mark Graber puts it, “Richard Glossip is likely to be executed because capital punishment enhances prosecutorial power to secure unreliable and arbitrary death sentences.”
Nebraska gets it…
May 21, 2015They say if ‘we’re going to be pro-life’, let’s really be pro-life’.
From theSkimm:
‘Let’s talk death penalty. Yesterday, Nebraska voted to get rid of it. The bill is expected to get the ‘veto’ stamp from Nebraska’s gov., but lawmakers say they have enough votes to override it. If it’s passed, Nebraska would be the first conservative state to abolish the death penalty in more than 40 years. After botched executions using lethal injection drugs in Oklahoma and Arizona last year, there’s been a debate over whether these drugs count as “cruel and unusual punishment.” The Supremes are making that call on one of these drugs next month.’